Turning Turing into a more-or-less mainstream hero: Morten Tyldum's THE IMITATION GAME

Alan Turing is a name known to many of us, particularly gay men, because he was a hero of World War II, perhaps the most important of them all, due to his breaking of the famous Enigma code which was used by the Nazis and changed daily to prevent its being deciphered. Some years back there was a fine British play that eventually came to Broadway -- Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore -- that starred a wonderful Derek Jacobi as Turing and told the tale of how the man managed to do this, at the same time as he struggled to hide, while still living as a homosexual in Britain (homosexuality was a criminal offense at the time).

Now we have a close-to-equally fine film on this same subject: THE IMITATION GAME, directed by Morten Tyldum (shown at right), with a screenplay by Graham Moore from the book by Andrew Hodges, and starring Benedict Cumberbatch (shown above, and below) as Turning. Mr. Cumberbatch is no stranger to playing odd roles -- Sherlock, Julian Assange, Khan in the most recent Star Trek (he even played Stephen Hawking in a TV movie a decade ago). Here, he beautifully nails Turing's strangeness (the man may have had some milder form of Autism such as Asperger Syndrome, which was never diagnosed back in that day), as well as his whip-smart intellect.

The Imitation Game is quite beautifully put together, weaving past and present into an exceedingly pleasurable experience to view and hear. It moves quickly but never jarringly, and it makes very clear the horrible injustice of having one's sexual preference criminalized. The screenplay is by turns witty and charming, smart and angry, and among its best touches are the numerous scenes of Turing as a schoolboy (well played by Alex Lawther) and its strong focus on the character of Joan Clarke, the woman who came to work with and for Turing as part of the the small group at Bletchley Park who were trying to crack the German code.

As played by the ever delightful and lovely Keira Knightley (above), Ms Clarke takes on major importance in a number of ways -- as a woman pushing to be able to work at what she does best (we're in the 1940s and 50s, remember) and as a kind of significant other for Turing. Ms Knightley comes through as she always does, with grace and grit. She and Cumberbatch work off each other quite beautifully.

The supporting cast, every last one of them, could hardly be improved upon. Especially fine are Charles Dance (above, right) as Turing's boss and bête noire; Matthew Goode (below, left) as the co-worker who initially loathes but finally admires this strange fellow; Mark Strong, (in bottom photo, center) impressive as his name, as an early MI5 member; and Allen Leech (below, right) and Matthew Beard (below, center) as other co-workers; and especially Rory Kinnear as the cop who suspects Turing of treason yet comes to regret his actions against the man.

The filmmakers and their cast have turned this tale into an oddly mainstream entertainment, and one that works almost perfectly as such. They've elided certain events and maybe people, too, for purposes of telescoping and storytelling.

While some of the language is curt and profane, there is no real sex of any kind on view, especially that regarding Turing and his same-sex preference. This will no doubt make it much easier for mainstream audiences to embrace the movie. Homosexuality is talked about but never seen nor experienced, so there is absolutely nothing here to shock or jerk a nose out of joint.

I admired the movie greatly and enjoyed it, too -- finding myself especially moved by the "what happened afterward" title crawl at the end of the film, which turns something that by all rights should make us feel bad into the feel-good instead. The track taken here may knock The Imitation Game down a notch or ten from anything approaching greatness, but it will certainly give the film that chance at copping the Oscar, a la The King's Speech. (If The Theory of Everything, which I have not as yet seen, doesn't grab that gold statuette instead.)

The movie -- from The Weinstein Company and running 114 minutes -- opens this Friday in both New York City  (at City Cinemas Paris Theater and the Angelika Film Center) and Los Angeles (at The Landmark and the Arclight Hollywood).

Size matters! So does reputation. Morten Tyldum's HEADHUNTERS shows us why.

What a week it has been for must-see movies: Three of 'em already -- and TrustMovies has seen only nine of the twenty-one films opening theatrically in New York City in the past seven days. (How does any critic possibly keep up with this flow? At the end of the year, when those "Best Lists" arrive, you just know that nobody's seen 'em all.) The third of the current week's must-sees (Bernie and Safe are the other two) is also, like Safe, part of the thriller genre: HEADHUNTERS (Hodejegerne in the original Norwegian), directed by Morten Tyldum (shown below) and written by Lars Gudmestad and Ulf Ryberg (from the novel by Jo Nesbø).

Our "hero" Roger (Aksel Hennie, shown below, at work) -- and little twat that he is, we still identify with him -- is only a slightly undersized fellow who nonetheless makes up for this with his own brand of Napoleon complex. One of the titular headhunters, he's a top pro in his field and would be by any normal standard considered quite the success. But it is not enough for someone who imagines himself "short," and so he makes up for this by stealing very valuable art and selling it on the black market. How he does this, using his day job as part of the scheme, makes for much of the fun of the opening section of the film.

From then on, however, as Roger gets in just a little too deeply and inextricably, the tension mounts until it is, at times, well nigh unbearable. Yet -- and this is part of the delight of this bleakly funny movie -- the humor is never far away, no matter how dark and disgusting things get (we won't go into what our hero is covered with, below). And, my, these "things" go places that few movies have been. Particularly films that are this funny.

Roger's wife, a statuesque blond played by Synnøve Macody Lund (below, left) has opened  an art gallery and one of her clients is a gorgeous and -- drat it! -- tall hunk named Clas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, below, center, and yes, from HBO's Game of Thrones) who not only might be looking for a newly-on-the-market, high-level job (that Roger could place him in) but also may have a priceless, stolen-by-the-Nazis piece of art in his possession. How can our hero resist this particular combo?

Of course he can't; let the games begin. So cleverly has the scenario been set up, and even more cleverly does it play out, that comparisons with Hitchcock are not amiss. Hitch loved to put his heroes through the wringer, but even he would be shocked at what our Roger has gone through by the time these hundred minutes have ended. (Hitch would also, I suspect, be grinning.)

This include a oddly clingy mistress (Julie R. Ølgaard, below),

a partner-in-crime (Eivind Sander, below) whose sexual tastes run to filming his Russian-prostitute girlfriend with a home camera,

and several others, the most biazrre of which may be the very heavy-set twin policemen from the provinces who end up saving our hero's life in a manner you would not want to try on your own nearby highway. Oh, and did I mention perhaps the most horribly inflicted haircut in the history of movies?

Almost, but not quite, too smart for its own good, the film still works beautifully precisely because it is so smart. Headhunters thrills, amuses and invigorates. That's more than enough, in my book, to make it a must-see. The movie, from Magnolia Pictures, opens today in New York City at the AMC Empire 25, the Beekman and Landmark's Sunshine Cinema, and in Los Angeles at The Landmark.  Click here for other playdates, with cities and theaters, across the country in the weeks to come